


burrow

by fatiguedfern



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Domestic Fluff, No Spoilers, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 15:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13169601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatiguedfern/pseuds/fatiguedfern
Summary: Saihara and Kiibo take refuge from the howling winter winds in their apartment.





	burrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mistropolis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistropolis/gifts).



> written for misty for the ndrv3 winter exchange hosted on tumblr! happy holidays and i hope you enjoy!

The mattress creaks under his squirming weight, springs denting and folding in on themselves with each of his movements. The air whistles with the choppy breath of an electric heater’s humming mechanism. Saihara’s eyes flit open, beaming sunlight puncturing the semi-shade that blankets the spread of their bed. His lungs flood with a mouthful of corrupted city air - half cleansed by the pure white of freshly fallen snow - and his mind kicks into whirl once more. 

A chill runs down the length of his spine, and he can’t help but wonder if Kiibo’d left the bedroom window peeled open on insistence that ventilation was always necessary, despite the icy breeze winding through the cityscape. Most likely.

The biting chill seeping from the ceramic tiles leaves him grateful for the thick wool socks slipped over his feet as he shuffles past the gaping bathroom door. Water trickles into cupped palms. Saihara drenches his face with the flick of his wrists. 

The residual droplets track down his face and dye his tongue with a soured spill, a chemical taste lingering long after the last of the droplets had halted their dribbling path and clung to his skin. Winter winds leaked from the misaligned window frame bat at his cheeks. Heaving a deep sigh, he slips out of the bathroom and into a new day.

The kettle huffs a last steam cloud just as he enters the crook of the kitchenette. Kiibo’s back - adorned in a sweater bought sizes too large for a human of their length that stretches snugly over their armour plating - remains turned to him as they dig out a spoon of finely ground rich brown from an unlabelled jar. 

Saihara shuffles close enough to Kiibo to trace the endearingly tacky festive pattern printed across the bright red material of their sweater, peeking over their shoulder just in time to see them empty a last spoonful of sugar into a chipped mug below. 

“Morning,” he breathes into Kiibo’s shoulder. It’s always a foreign experience to so casually brush up against another, no matter how often Saihara’s given the opportunity to grow accustomed to initiating contact between himself and Kiibo’s own synthetic skin. From the way they shudder beneath the light flutter of his breath against their sensors, it’s surely a foreign exchange for them too.

Saihara supposes it’s only natural for any touch other than probing fingers prying at their circuits to feel unnatural, for any human contact beyond wrenching hands examining their body as a hollowed metallic shell whose wired intestines were open to rearranging to feel anything but abnormal. He steadies his hesitantly hovering hand and steels his oddly shaky nerves and lays a feather light palm between the arched angles that might classify as their shoulder blades. Months pass, yet he still can’t seem to begin to truly understand their body. 

“A-ah, good morning, Sh-shuuichi-kun,” they stutter, their speech’s forced intervals not unlike that of a computer’s audio reduced to static. They awkwardly push away from Saihara, reaching to pluck the kettle from its heating plate. 

The mixture of instant coffee and clumped sugar dissolves the moment Kiibo drowns the powdered mix in a steady flood of steaming water. They set about stirring the sloshing liquid at a steady pace, before extending the mug in Saihara’s general direction with a head bowed low and mitten-clad hands clasped tight. 

Saihara murmurs his thanks in passing as he settles onto a stool haphazardly pushed beneath the counter. He picks at a loose strand coloured navy unraveling from the cuff of his nightshirt, looping the thread between his fingers as he looks up at Kiibo. “Anything specific you have in mind for today?” 

Kiibo’s back straightens even further if possible, their gaze catching on the widespread field of snowy ice blanketing the streets below. Children’s chirps sing through the cracks lining the apartment floor and Saihara watches as Kiibo’s eyes dim with a hopelessly yearning flicker. “Nothing in particular.”

Saihara pulls his lips into what he hopes to be a sympathetic smile, but that had more likely curved to resemble an awkward grimace in condolence. Perhaps Saihara couldn’t see all too much appeal in drenching oneself in frost, but he supposes it is something of a winter ritual, and for Kiibo it’d never been a possibility, for melted snow meant liquid corrosion and malfunction. 

“Let’s stay in for today,” Saihara says, then pauses at the realisation of how final and unmoving his suggestion may sound. “I-I mean if that’s okay with you…” 

“If that’s what you prefer, it’s perfectly fine with me.” Kiibo shifts to settle their gaze onto the pinewood floor spread beneath Saihara’s feet. 

He gives a slight nod, smiling as brightly as the dim shroud of lingering half-sleep allows. Saihara’s fingers drum against the counter in an offbeat thrum of doubt. “Well then, help me move these?” Saihara says, half-gesturing towards the cluttered arrangement of chairs beside him. 

.

Kiibo meticulously bundles the last of their throw pillows into the corners of the alcove of piled blankets and neatly aligned stools.The topsheet of the blanket fort sticks up at an odd angle where Kiibo’s metallic tuft of hair pokes into the material. Saihara smothers an amused snort into his cupped palm. 

“There! All done,” they brush off the lint sticking to their sweater and proudly place their hands on their hips, beaming Saihara’s way. 

Saihara smiles back from where he fumbles with the disc of a shoddily produced Christmas film. “I’m almost done on my end too,” he says, slipping the first of many discs Kiibo had somehow procured in an attempt to bring about seasonal cheer into the slitted mouth of the disc player. 

By the time he fumbles his way into the fort Kiibo’s already stiffly propped themself up in the center of the blanketed space. “A-ah, could you please scooch up a bit, Kiibo-kun?” 

“Of course!” they say, voice grinding loudly as they shift with just a bit too much vigour, pulling the quilt beneath them askew. 

Saihara shifts into the space next to Kiibo, their creakily spread leg pressing into his own. The murmured volume of the playing movie tickles at his ears, a dull lull of background noise in comparison to the contentedly steady thumping of his own heartbeat thudding in his ribcage. 

And perhaps there was no heartbeat to pulse against his skin in turn, but the weight pressed into his side is familiar, as is the clean cut cent of sterile detergent cloying to their sweater, and the firmness of the shoulder he slumps into. Saihara feels his eyes droop. Oddly, he finds his mind at ease as he drifts into unconsciousness, because as sure as melting snow giving way to spring, Kiibo would be right beside him as he wakes.


End file.
